Wednesday, June 29, 2016

PAHANG MUFTI'S STATEMENT

A Pahang State Mufti, prime minister
Najib’s home state, made a statement two days ago that kafir harbi (a disbeliver making war on Islam) can be killed in
Malaysia, has been denounced by Muslims and non-Muslim alike. We Malaysians of
whatever ethnic or religious group have been living fairly peacefully since Malaysia
was formed in 1963. None of us wants a repeat of the bloody Mei 13.

That said, the Mufti has no right to
make such statement. He should be fired. The Mufti of Perlis, Datuk Mohd. Asri
has rightly refuted him. Yet our religious minister did not censor him. After
keeping quiet for a while, the prime minister’s office then came out saying
that it was his personal opinion!

It is a very dangerous statement. It
shows a bigotry beyond belief. It transpired that he did so because the party opposed
the so-called hudud penal punishments. I
have used the term “so-called” because there is no such thing as hudud penal
punishments in the Quran. The phrase tilka
hudud’ul-Lah, occurring 14 times in the Quran, does not refer to punishments
at all. It refers to a theoretical boundary in human actions that should not be
overpassed. One must eat in order to live; but one should not over-eat! Thus
for eating, so for all human actions. It is the old Golden Mean. “Do unto others
as you would others do unto you”, of the Bible.

There are two types of politicians:
the principled, and the Machiavellian. Prophet Muhammad is one example of a
principled politician. And principled politicians are a rare breed. The
Machiavellian are many. So beware of them. They think they are smart, but as
the Malay proverb has it, :”Sepandai-pandai
tupai melopat, akhirnya jatuh ke tanah juga.” So man, however famous and
great he may be, should be learn to be humble. There is no one higher than the
Highest Power we call God, Who alone deserved to be worshiped.

It is true that man has been created
to be God’s vicegerent on earth. That means he is a ruler. As much as he is a
ruler, he is also a re-maker of the Universe, by God’s leave. Remember that when
God informed the angels that he was going to creates a khalifah, the dutiful angels protested, saying that they would shed
and blood and corrupt the earth.

God simply answered He knew better.

Shedder of blood and corruptor of
the earth man surely has been. But that is only one side of him – with two
World Wars, and a possible Third to show. Yet he has also been a builder of
civilizations – 19 major ones to date, according to philosophical historian, Arnold
Toynbee.

Today man is
poised to colonize outer space. Soon he will be living there. He also
discovering methods to do away with aging. Soon he will be forever young, as
the Quran avers. What else he can do
with ever better technology, only God knows. No wonder, God commanded the angels
to prostrate to man!

About Me

(About Kassim Ahmad
By: M. Bakri Musa)
Kassim Ahmad is Malaysia's foremost thinker and philosopher. He grabbed national headlines in the 1950s with his dissertation on the characters of Hang Tuah (Perwatakan Hang Tuah), the Malay literary classic. In it he challenged the traditional interpretation and made the hitherto hero Hang Tuah as nothing more than a palace hack, and elevated the anti-hero Hang Jebat as the true hero, willing to kill even the sultan in defence of honor and principles.
Kassim was jailed for nearly five years under the ISA for daring to express openly his political views, an experience which he recounted in his book, Universiti Kedua (Second University).
Kassim again shook the Malay world with his "Hadith: A Re-Examination" in which he challenges the infallibility of the purported words of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.
Except for an honorary doctorate in Letters conferred by the National University of Malaysia, the country has not seen fit to honor this great public intellectual.
June 2005